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USS Camp
(DE-251)

CAMP

Born
27 August 1916 in Jennings, La., Jack Hill Camp enlisted in the Naval
Reserve 20 January 1941 and was appointed a naval aviator 29 December 1941.
Attached to Patrol Squadron 44, Ensign Camp was killed in action 7 June 1942
during the Battle of Midway.

USS
CAMP (DE-251) was launched 16 April 1943 by Brown Shipbuilding Co., Houston,
Tex.; sponsored by Mrs. O. H. Camp; commissioned 16 September 1943,
Lieutenant Commander P. B. Mavor, USCG, in command; and reported to the
Atlantic Fleet. After duty as school ship for precommissioning crews for
other escort vessels, CAMP cleared Norfolk, Va., 14 December 1943, escorting
a convoy bound for Casablanca with men and supplies for the operations in
Italy. CAMP returned to Norfolk 24 January 1944 to begin a year and a half
of convoy escort operations from New York to ports of the United Kingdom,
guarding convoys whose ships brought troops and mountains of equipment and
supplies for the buildup and support of the assault on the European
continent.

Fighting
the foul weather common in the North Atlantic, CAMP’s alertness against
submarine attack and diligence were rewarded by no losses in any of the
convoys she accompanied. A collision with a merchantman, in which one of
CAMP's crew members was killed, required a repair period during which CAMP
received a new bow and acquired 5" guns; otherwise her escort duty was
uninterrupted until 19 June 1945. CAMP cleared Charleston, S.C., 9 July 1945
for the Pacific, and after serving as a training ship at Pearl Harbor,
proceeded to Eniwetok for occupation duty. She supervised the evacuation of
the Japanese garrison from Mili, then took on air-sea rescue duties off
Kwajalein until 4 November, when she sailed for home, arriving at New York
10 December.

She
was decommissioned 1 May 1946 and her Coast Guard crew was removed.
She was reclassified DER-251 on 7 December 1965, CAMP was recommissioned 31
July l956 for duty as radar picket ship in the early warning system. She
reported to Newport, R.I., 19 February 1957 and operated from that port to
Argentia, Newfoundland, and into the North Atlantic through 1960. [In 1965,
her large radar antennae was removed and CAMP was sent to Indo-China for
coastal patrol and interdiction by the US Navy (Operation Market Time). She
was transferred to South Vietnam on 6 February 1971. Renamed frigate TRAN
HUNG DAO (HQ-01), the ship was stricken from the US Navy Register on 30
December 1975. Following the surrender of the South Vietnamese government on
29 April 1975, TRAN HUNG DAO escaped to the Philippines which acquired the
ship later that year. Formally transferred on 5 April 1976, former TRAN HUNG
DAO was commissioned into the Philippine Navy as frigate RAJAH LAKANDULA
(PS-4). Deleted in 1988, she was retained and acted as a stationary
headquarters ship as recently as 1995.

From
the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, (1969) Vol. 2,
pp.21-22